Switzerland | After the snow has gone

The Swiss must be shrewd negotiators. It’s the only explanation for the ease with which our group of Russians, Czechs, an Austrian and an Australian have been convinced to take off our shoes and socks before heading into the marshy moorland of the Entlebuch region, in the foothills of the Swiss Alps.

Our expedition instructions included bringing waterproof boots, but no one seems to have done so. Our shoes will get soaked, our Swiss guide Christian tells us, and urges us to go barefoot instead. A bit stumped by the unusual request, everyone obliges.

Which is a good thing as it turns out that rambling barefoot through a Swiss moor is far more pleasant than it sounds. The soft mosses and grasses ooze clear alpine water. It’s the end of summer so the weather is clement. The whole experience is like walking on a sponge filled with mineral water. Which in effect is exactly what we’re doing.

When you think of Switzerland, marshy moorland isn’t an image that comes to mind, and the Entlebuch, in the country’s dead centre, is on few tourists’ itineraries. But if you’ve ever wondered, as your legs dangle from a chairlift while on a ski holiday, what exactly lies beneath the smoothly groomed ski slopes, then a summer holiday in the Entlebuch will provide an appealing answer.

Here the snow melts into a microcosm of densely packed grasses, mosses and plants that burst into flushes of wildflowers in the spring and summer. About 200 different plants per 10 square metres makes this the most biologically diverse part of Switzerland. The countryside is Swiss-pretty; from a distance you’ll see rolling valleys dotted with farms bordered by forests of dark green spruce curving up to steep hills, over whose shoulders lurk the Alps with their permafrosted peaks. But when you drag your eyes away from the scenery, bend down and focus on the small details below, you will be amply rewarded.

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You’ll find such treasures as coral-like tufts of starmoss, whose luminous five-pointed leaves interlock in mini-galaxies of green. Clumps of gentiana, a sort of alpine gladioli, provide daubs of pink and purple while wispy balls of grasswool stand tall like sticks of fairy floss, gently unfurling into white threads that are carried off with the wind. The Entlebuch’s moors are a densely packed ecosystem and Christian, who has taken off his own waterproof boots and socks, wants us to feel it squishing up between our toes.

It’s nature as nature intended, although I wonder about the barefoot strategy when we pause to inspect a carnivorous plant.

The 400 square kilometres of the Entelbuch, midway between Lucerne and Interlaken, are classified as a UNESCO biosphere – sites that promote sustainable development supported by local communities and based on science.

The area is a patchwork of farms, threaded together with the odd ski lift – too much development for the land to be preserved as a national park. (Indeed the lack of spare land in Switzerland means the country has only one national park – even though the entire country seems pretty enough to qualify.)

The biosphere designation, however, gives the area a high level of protection and this little pocket of Switzerland, with its dairy farms, bell-wearing cows and 19 yodelling clubs, is worth protecting.

It is not yet overrun with Chinese tour buses or Russian oligarchs driving Porsche Cayennes. You could say it has that most elusive of holiday destination attributes: authenticity.

To make the most out of traipsing around Switzerland’s moors, you can call on the services of a guide. Those interested in eco-tourism would find it hard to beat Christian, who can be reached through the Entlebuch Biosphere organisation. At the earliest possible opportunity during his compulsory year-long military training he switched to community service and worked on more environmental projects such as recording the number of butterflies in a forest and helping out on a remote cow farm.

Self-directed travellers, however, can do their own rambling around the moors – the Eichhof Tavern near the town of Salwideli is a good place to start. You may want to take off your shoes.

If you’re looking for something a little less subtle, jump on the cable car that spirits you up from the village of Sorenberg to Brienzer Rothorn. Ten minutes and a few pops of the ears later you’ll emerge at 2230 metres – coincidentally the height of Mount Kosciuszko but with very different views. Instead of looking around and down on the lesser peaks of the Australian Alps here you look way, way down at Brienze Lake and its surrounding villages, and then way, way up at the 4000-metre-high peaks of the Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger. You don’t need a geology degree to imagine the glaciers that carved this valley out of the limestone. The turquoise waters of Lake Brienze reflect the passing grey clouds, at times looking like a giant Rorschach painting. It’s a vista that is as vertical as it is horizontal, and in typically Swiss fashion there’s a restaurant from which you can savour the view.

Walk for about an hour down the mountainside and you’ll reach Eisee, a small alpine lake that for most of the year is covered in snow and ice. Skiers wouldn’t even know it’s there. But in summer the ice melts and a perfect teardrop of crystal-clear water emerges.

It’s popular with anglers – the fish go into a state of near-hibernation in winter.

Hemmed in by mountain peaks and moraine, cow bells clinking in the distance, in the warmth of the summer’s day the water is just too inviting.

Christian is no longer with us, but he would no doubt have approved of my taking off my shoes, socks and clothes and wading into the brisk alpine water for a swim.